


Part-Time Work

by lurrel



Category: Ms. Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/pseuds/lurrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kamala Khan needs a job, or a cover story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Part-Time Work

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).



Kamala Khan is going to be late for school.

It feels weird not being late because she’s hit the snooze button too many times, being hustled out the door by Ammi, lunch bag in hand.

It also feels weird to be jogging home while being followed by an enormous magical dog, but this is her life now.

-

Yusuf wonders if he’s going soft as he looks into Kamala’s bedroom. He’s trying to pray more with his son, in part to show him that adherence doesn’t mean unemployment, and this morning he thought maybe she would like to join them.

Kamala’s bed is empty.

He sighs, and wonders if he should wake up Aisha, call the police, call her cellphone. It’s not that he doesn’t know she’s a good kid -- it’s that she doesn’t think she can tell him what she’s been working on. And something's obviously going on, because Kamala has never woken up before her alarm willingly in her life.

He knows in his bones it’s not drugs, or a gang, or anything like that. But Yusuf doesn’t know what it could be, and that makes him worry all the more.

“Abu?” Aamir calls from down the hall, and he shuts her door. He’ll talk to her, soon.

-

Kamala's been up since five am, patrolling the streets in a science’d up bathing suit, waiting for something out of the ordinary to happen. She managed to get a homeless guy out of the cold and to a shelter that was just opening, and kept someone from snatching an iPhone at a bus stop, so it wasn’t a total bust, but nothing big had caught her eye.

She didn’t realize that _being_ a superhero meant so much  _waiting_  for stuff to happen.

"Wait a minute," she says, panting. The streets are still pretty empty and she peels into an alley. "Take me home, Lockjaw," she says, resting a hand on his fur.

He glances at her, as if to say,  _duh, Ms. Marvel,_ and they end up in her backyard.

The neighborhood is almost entirely silent. She wonders if Bruno feels this weird in the pre-school hours of the morning, when the skies in Jersey City are neither light or dark. This is near when Aamir wakes up for Fajr, something no one else in her family quite commits to these days.

"Hey Abu!" she shouts as she runs upstairs to change out of her sweats, chosen because they fit over her costume.

"Kamala!" he shouts back, almost jumping in surprise. He's lurking in front of her door. "What's got you up this early?"

"I'm a responsible pet owner, Abu -- had to take Lockjaw for walkies!" He looks a little shell-shocked as she shuts the door.

She almost asks Lockjaw to teleport her to the Circle Q so she can grab coffee before class, but she isn't sure about the long-term effects of scrambling her atoms just to avoid detention.

"Thanks for joining us, Ms. Khan," her teacher says archly, eyebrows raised, as she skitters into class right after the last bell. Bruno throws her a sympathetic look. Nakia is frowning at her, but not worse than her teacher. This is _not_ how she normally gets noticed in school -- it’s usually for asking too many questions, not looking like a troublemaker.

Kamala doesn’t get detention, though, and it’s a relief.

-

School has never made Kamala antsy like this.

Sure, a lot of her classes are boring, and she spends a lot of time writing fanfic instead of taking notes , but generally she’s fulfilled the expectations of her parents and teachers by pulling As. Okay, Ammi was disappointed with her 90 in pre-cal, asking if she wanted a tutor, but she knows she’s doing pretty well by normal, non immigrant mom standards. Probably.

But sitting inside, drawing little Wolverine heads in her chemistry notebook has never felt this _useless_ before. She could be stopping crime. She could be hunting down The Inventor. She could be --

“Kamala? The answer, please?" Her chemistry teacher has bushy eyebrows and they're all she can focus on when he's talking.

“Uh. Could you repeat the question?”

She makes Wolverine just as frowny as she feels after she gets it totally wrong. Probably no one has ever asked him chemistry questions. She wonders if they even teach it at mutant school.

-

Kamala normally goes straight home, where Ammi will make a snack and she’ll tell her all about the boring minutiae of her day at school, and then go and look at Yamblr for a couple hours and then do her homework.

But she feels weird, right, sitting at her kitchen table lying to her own mother. And what’s worse, Ammi _knows._ Not what, but that something’s not being said.

So she follows Bruno back to work.

-

“What if I got a job at the Circle Q?”

Bruno looks up from the counter at Kamala, who’s sitting in the one folding chair the store has. She’s got their AP World History book open but it’s not the right chapter.

“Uh. Well, for one thing, I don’t think Chatty Bobby or I could spare the hours. It’s not really a bustling hubbub here.”

“Okay, well what if you told my parents I got a job at the Circle Q. I think you owe me at least one lie in exchange for being a total snitch.”

Bruno winces. He might have deserved that, but he was _worried_. And he was right! Sort of.

“I don’t think they’d let you get a job running the nightshift of a store that isn’t open 24-hours. Or even at one that was, really.”

Kamala huffs, blowing hair out of her face. Bruno is struck, not for the first time, with how much he doesn’t care about how weird everything’s gotten -- he wants to help keep her safe no matter what.

Which means the lie has to be believable.

“Why don’t you just say you’re volunteering or at some club at school?”

“Because,” she says, like it’s obvious, “then I’d feel super guilty about not actually being in a club or spending time volunteering. Plus, my parents would expect me to put in on my college applications!”

“It’s not like being,” and here he lowers his voice, “Ms. Marvel isn’t volunteering.”

Kamala thinks about it for a second. “Yeah, but I don’t think UPenn is really gonna give me brownie points for claiming to be a superhero, you know?”

“Don’t you think your parents would cut your allowance if you told them you had a job?”

“Oh, huh. I didn’t think about that.” She taps her finger on her lip, a tic Bruno has always been fascinated with. “Lockjaw needs a lot of food.”

“Yeah.”

“Ugh, I wish this wasn’t so complicated!” She slams her book shut and slumps back in her chair.

“You could always, you know, tell them.”

She rolls her eyes. “If I thought I could tell them, I would tell them.”

“Really?” Bruno is also fascinated by Kamala’s parents, who are warm and kind and always make them leave the door open when he’s visiting. Her mother always makes sure to give him extra dãi ever since he was brought to tears by a curry.

“C’mon, I tell them practically everything!” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Even when they don’t even seem to care.”

She doesn’t come to his house, but that’s mostly because he doesn’t invite her. It’s not like his mom is going to to make his friends dinner. His mom isn’t going to make his friends lassis or even order them a pizza.

Bruno wants to shout, “They care!” at her, but he doesn’t.

“I just don’t know what to do,” she says, and lays her head on her history book.

“Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”

-

Nakia likes the way the she looks in the hijab, even in a al-amira, hair tucked away and face starkly framed. Her mother tried buying her hairclips to dissuade her, her father saying that it was dangerous, but she just bought another scarf that day at the mall.

Today it’s purple, and she comes into the Circle Q for a coffee and because she needs to talk.

Kamala’s sitting in her usual spot, bothering Bruno. Won’t answer her texts, but she can be counted on to be there.

But then Kamala’s phone rings.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh. Okay, yeah, thanks,” she says, rushed. Her voice is a little panicky, like there’s a pop quiz. She looks up at Nakia and then at Bruno.

“I, uh, gotta run,” she says, hand at her neck and an awkward expression on her face.

“Who even was that?” It’s not like any of them have many friends in the neighborhood -- the other girls they know from the masjid live on a different side of town, and they only see them at parties thrown by their parents.

“A-amir,” Kamala stutters out before disappearing behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

“Who was that?” Nakia hisses at Bruno, slamming her palms on the counter. He jumps, ridiculous hair flopping, eyes wide. “Was it a boy?”

“N-n-not exactly.”

“You two are both horrible liars,” she says and he slumps, shoulders and whole body drooping.

“I _know_ ,” he says glumly, and she feels sorry for a second before remembering, oh yeah, she’s the one he’s keeping secrets from.

“If there’s ...if she was wrapped up in something bad, so help me if you don’t tell me in time.”

“No, no, no. It isn’t like that.” He bites his lip. He’s so pathetically in love with her best friend it makes her hate him, just for a second. “I mean. Well. It’s not like how you think.”

“Do her parents know?” she narrows her eyes and he shakes his head no vigorously.

“Believe me, you’ll know way before they do. I promise!”

-

Aisha knows the news from every family that attends the Masjid, even the ones he only ever sees at services. So he’s been informed him that Nakia, too, always a little more respectful than his Kamala, is becoming withdrawn, moody, “acting she knows it all,” lately.

She seems to think that America breeds sassiness in their daughters, but he can remember that at 16, he too wanted his own secrets.

“Nakia is figuring things out.”

Aisha sighs. “I worry about her. The hijab, it’s her choice, but things are hard for her and Kamala already…”

Yusuf wonders, briefly, if she and Amir and the younger generation has found a way use piety as a way to annoy their parents. But he nods, glad Kamala is at least not making herself a target. They do their best, but things here are different in ways neither could have prepared for.

-

Once she gets home, Kamala can’t stop thinking about the cool sleekness of Attilan. She lies in bed and thinks of the medical bay there, how advanced everything is, how regal everyone seemed.

How could she be a part of that? How could they, too, be her family?

Lockjaw, she knows, is already there. She caught her father feeding him some naan when he thought no one was looking, rubbing behind his ears as Lockjaw panted happily.

But Lockjaw is easy to love -- for one thing, he’s an enormous adorable dog. Medusa is gorgeous, distant. A _Queen_. The doctor told her Medusa cared for her -- but how could she, when all she knew was that Kamala had powers and got into trouble a lot?

She wanted to trust Wolverine, too, but did she really know him either?

How could she have a family that only knew one side of herself, when her own family didn’t know that side at all?

Kamala puts a pillow over her face and screams. She feels a little better. There’s so much hidden inside of her and it seems like the bigger she can grow, the worst it gets.

She calls Nakia.

-

Kamala bounces in through the door like she’s not living a mysterious double life, one where she goes to parties with Zoe Zimmerman and gets freaking grounded.

“Do you still have that burkini you bought two summers ago?” she asks when they’re in Nakia’s room.

Nakia stares.

“I do,” she says, slowly, "but what could you possibly want it with it. It’s fall, and you’re not really good enough to join the swim team.”

Kamala’s smile falters. “It’s for a project?”

Nakia keeps staring.

“It’s a secret?”

Nakia sighs. “I’m not an idiot, Kamala.”

She flops back on the bed, probably to avoid looking Nakia in the face. “It’s a really weird secret, though.”

“Well, it’s yours, so I figured that.”

“I mean, yeah, but like really really weird. And dangerous.”

“Gangs dangerous? Boys dangerous? Or, say, robot blowing up the school dangerous?”

Kamala sits up, eyes wide.

“You’re not the only person who uses the internet you know.”

Kamala grabs her hand, and Nakia knows this is it. This is the moment where she finally gets to know.

Kamala’s hand grows four times its normal size and Nakia works hard not to scream.

“Like I said, it’s really weird.”

“You...you’re…” Nakia swallows, shakes her head, and Kamala’s hand shrinks down.

“I know, it’s a lot to handle, but I can help people. I want to help people.”

“The library,” Nakia manages to say.

“What?”

“You should volunteer at the library.”

“What?!”

Nakia squares her shoulders. “Bruno said you were thinking about a job. But you could do that. And then your parents wouldn’t worry so much."

“Nakia, I can’t help people the same way _at the library_ , this is serious --”

“I’m serious! It’s a good cover story! You go one day a week but tell your parents more, okay?”

Nakia feels flushed and Kamala is now the one doing the staring. There’s a pause and then Kamala tackles her in a hug, knocking them both across the bed.

“You’re a genius!”

“Will you tell them?” Nakia says as they lay next to each other, holding hands.

“I want to,” she says, “I want to more than anything.”

“You can’t.” Nakia knows this truth in her bones.

“I know,” she says, quiet. Nakia squeezes her hand.

 

-

Kamala Khan is early for her first day at the library. She spends ten minutes in a wooden chair, staring at her Chucks and feeling dumb. She likes writing, but she doesn’t know a lot about work. Bruno helped her write a resume, which said basically that she had good grades and was published in the literary magazine last year.

Apparently there’s a low bar for working for free, though, because she got a gig restocking books and offering to edit student papers every Monday from a phone interview.

“You’re Kamala Khan?” asks a nice woman, Chinese with graying hair. “I’m Mrs. Liu. We spoke on the phone.”

She swallows hard. She’s punched at least three dudes in the face, so she’s not sure why talking to this librarian is so hard.

“Yeah.”

Mrs. Liu smiles. “Perfect. I’ve looked over your resume, and I think you’ll be a great addition to our family,” she says, and shakes Kamala’s hand.

-

“I got job,” Kamala says at dinner that night.

“See, Aamir? Your sister is only 16 and even she can get a job.”

Aamir shrugs, unconcerned.

“School is your job, Kamala,” Ammi says, but she exchanges a few looks with her father at the table. “It won’t take too much time, yes?”

Kamala almost says, “It’s only on Mondays,” but says, “It’s only a couple hours after school.”

“This is good for her applications,” Abu says, just like she expected him too.

Her mother takes a moment and says, “The second your grades drop…”

“I’ll quit, I know, I know. But it’ll be good, I promise.”

“Alright,” she says. “I am proud of you, you know.”

“You are a good girl,” her father says.

It’s a start, Kamala thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to recrudescence for reassuring me on this, and sorrynotsorry for her excellent beta instincts! <3


End file.
